The National Interest

Stephen Silver

Coronavirus, Americas

It’s taken nearly a year, but it appears things have improved when it comes to getting answers, at least from Alexa. Or perhaps, there are just more places to get tested.

Last March, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, the website Venturebeat wrote a story about how such digital assistants as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant could better talk about the pandemic.

The author of that asked Alexa where they could get tested for the virus. Alexa responded with a set of local business listings, while Google’s counterpart simply said “sorry, I’m not sure how to help.”

It’s taken nearly a year, but it appears things have improved when it comes to getting answers, at least from Alexa. Or perhaps, there are just more places to get tested.

CNBC reported Friday that Amazon recently added a feature to Alexa that provides more reliable answers when it comes to finding a testing location. It works on both phones with Alexa apps and on Echo speakers, while providing data drawn from GISCorps, as well as from Yelp.

When I asked my Echo the question of “Where can I get tested for Covid-19?,” it listed a diagnostics lab, and a pair of pharmacies within a few miles of my house, while also saying that I could ask for the addresses for the first one.

The mobile app version brought up eight results.

Apple’s Siri, however, appears to be less accurate. When I asked it the same question, the top result was an “investigations and armed security” firm, located 114 miles away from me, although the next four results were indeed nearby urgent care centers, and one hospital that performs lab testing.

When I asked Alexa where I could get vaccinated near me, the answer wasn’t nearly as specific.

“Following CDC recommendations, vaccines are being allocated first to health care personnel and long-term care facility residents. For information on local vaccination sites, visit vaccines.gov.”

Ever since the start of the pandemic, sluggishness in the progress of testing has been a major problem in the fight against the coronavirus.

“You’re paying billions of dollars in this very inequitable way to get the most worthless test results of any country in the world,” Bill Gates said in August on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday. “No other country has this testing insanity… “It’s mind-blowing that you can’t get the government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is.”

Amazon, on the other hand, the maker of Alexa, has posted blockbuster financial results throughout the pandemic. For the fourth quarter of 2020, Amazon posted revenue of $125.56 billion, for its first-ever quarter of over a billion dollars. CEO Jeff Bezos also announced that he is stepping down later this year.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security,

“Hypersonics have been hyped up to be unprecedented, game-changing weapons.” But that may not be the case.

Here's What You Need to Remember: It just might be possible to intercept a hypersonic weapon during its final, “terminal” moments of flight. That’s because a hypersonic missile is slower during its terminal phase than an ICBM is.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff seems a little confused about hypersonic weapons and what the United States can do to defend against them.

U.S. Army general Mark Milley’s confusion was apparent in his March 4, 2020 testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

Milley overhyped the capabilities of China and Russia’s Mach-five missiles, potentially stirring uncertainty into ongoing negotiations over the Pentagon’s budget for 2021.

"There is no defense against hypersonic,” Milley said. “You're not going to defend against it. Those things are going so fast you're not going to get it.”

It’s true that hypersonic weapons such as China’s DF-17 and Russia’s Avangard essentially are impossible to intercept during the middle of their flight, the so-called “midcourse” phase.

The U.S. Navy deploys SM-3 interceptors that can destroy, during their midcourse flight, slower medium-range ballistic missiles, such as the type to which Iran might fit a nuclear warhead.

But the SM-3 probably wouldn’t work against hypersonic weapons, Kingston Reif, a missile expert at the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C., told The National Interest.

“Our current midcourse missile defenses aren't capable of defending or postured to defend against hypersonic glide vehicles,” Reif said, “largely because gliders fly at a lower altitude and in a different atmosphere than traditional ballistic missiles.”

“The less predictable trajectory and potential maneuverability of gliders would also pose challenges to these defenses,” Reif added. “Existing terrestrial and space-based radars and sensors would also be challenged to track lower-altitude, maneuverable gliders.”

In that way, hypersonic missiles are similar to heavy, long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. ICBMs fly too high and too fast for reliable midcourse interception, although the Pentagon has claimed some success in limited tests of just such an intercept.

But it just might be possible to intercept a hypersonic weapon during its final, “terminal” moments of flight. That’s because a hypersonic missile is slower during its terminal phase than an ICBM is.

“Terminal, narrower-area defenses designed to intercept re-entry vehicles as they are bearing down on their target would in theory be more feasible, since at that stage a glider would be traveling slower than a ballistic [re-entry vehicle],” Reif explained.

Indeed, the Pentagon despite Milley’s alarmism is making big investments in terminal defenses against hypersonic missiles.

Congress in 2020 gave the Missile Defense Agency $400 million for the work. For 2021 the MDA wants another $200 million for the effort. The agency in February 2020 asked industry to begin submitting designs.

The investment in new defenses is why Milley’s fatalism is so “puzzling,” to borrow Reif’s characterization. The military acquisitions community knows it’s not impossible to develop defenses against hypersonic threats.

Milley’s comments could point to a wider misunderstanding of Mach-five missiles. “Hypersonics have been hyped up to be unprecedented, game-changing weapons,” Reif said.

But some skepticism probably is in order, David Larter advised in a November 2019 column in Defense News. “The catch is that none of this stuff works yet,” Larter wrote about new hypersonic weapons. “I want to emphasize that all of what we’re talking about here are prototypes.”

Bryan Clark, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C., likewise is skeptical of what Larter described as “the hypersonics craze.”

“These boost-glide prompt-strike weapons are really designed to have a strategic effect,” Clark explained.

“There are a small number of weapons, they are really expensive, so you are not going to hit a bunch of targets with them. So even one weapon that’s a hypersonic weapon could still get shot down. You may not be able to generate a bunch of effects with them because they cost so much that you aren’t going to do the thing where you overwhelm the air-defenses and come in from multiple angles with hypersonics because you don’t have enough of them.”

Hypersonic weapons steadily are getting better and more numerous and, in the future, could pose a serious threat to U.S. forces. But it’s not impossible to defend against them.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security, Asia

Three years ago Taiwan stocked up on air-defense missiles that, in a land-based role, probably wouldn’t make a dent in Chinese invasion forces during a major war. But the missiles could prove more useful at sea.

Three years ago Taiwan stocked up on air-defense missiles that, in a land-based role, probably wouldn’t make a dent in Chinese invasion forces during a major war. But the missiles could prove more useful at sea.

The U.S. Defense Department announced on Dec. 9, 2016, that the U.S. Army had awarded an Alabama-based company $23 million to build components for the Taiwanese military’s Chaparral air-defense missile systems.

The contract award was routine. What was news to many observers is that Taiwan still operates Chaparrals. The 1960s-vintage missiles probably can’t do much to stop Chinese aircraft in the event China invades the island country.

The U.S. Army launched the development of the MIM-72 Chaparral air-defense system in 1965 after a more ambitious surface-to-air missile launcher, the MIM-46 Mauler, proved to be impractical.

The Chaparral was an expedient. It borrowed the U.S. Navy’s AIM-9D Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missile and mounted it in a quad-pack atop a modified M-113 armored vehicle.

Technically, the launcher is an M-48. The missile is an MIM-72. But in practice, most people use “Chaparral” and “MIM-72” interchangeably to mean the overall air-defense system.

Paired with M-163 Vulcan vehicles armed with 20-millimeter rotary cannons — plus, in some cases, MPQ-49 radars — the Chaparrals were supposed to protect Army troops along the forward edge of the battlefield, where Soviet attack helicopters and low-flying close-air-support jets were a big danger.

But the Chaparral suffered serious limitations. The Sidewinder missile had a range of only five miles under the best of circumstances. And while later versions of the missile could track a target from all angles, it always worked best while chasing an enemy aircraft from behind. That gave the missile’s seeker head the clearest view of the hottest parts of the target—its engine exhaust.

An attack helicopter popping up from behind some trees could strike quickly then pop back down, masking it from view before a Chaparral crew could slew its launcher and fire.

The U.S. Army bought more than 600 Chaparral systems and fielded them between 1969 and 1998, when various versions of the Stinger missile finally replaced them. Today the Pentagon is working on mobile lasers to replace the Stingers.

But Taiwan, a country of 23 million people with a military budget of just $10 billion, is stuck with the Chaparrals it bought starting in the early 1980s. Taipei acquired as many as 90 launchers plus hundreds of missiles — and also bought a naval version of the Chaparral for its small fleet of frigates.

Taiwan’s Chaparrals are part of an air-defense system that also includes around 300 fighter jets plus Stingers, long-range Hawk and Patriot missile batteries and the indigenous Sky Bow missile — all cued by a network of powerful radars.

But this air-defense system might not be sufficient to stop a Chinese invasion. Taiwan lies just 100 miles from mainland China, which officially considers Taiwan to be an illegal, breakaway province — and has threatened to invade in the event that Taipei formally declares its independence.

Against Taiwan’s defenses, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army — the PLA — can quickly muster hundreds of modern fighters, attack planes, bombers and attack helicopters — not to mention a thousand short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that could pulverize Taiwan’s air bases and military installations, including fixed radar and surface-to-air missile sites, in the early hours of a war.

The Chaparrals couldn’t do much to stop this aerial assault. When the RAND Corporation, an influential American think tank, assessed Taiwan’s air-defense system in 2016, the analysts didn’t even mention the Chaparrals by name — and were dismissive of the systems’ ability to stop Chinese air raids in the aftermath of a ballistic-missile barrage.

“The completion of the attacks on the long-range SAMs would dramatically decrease the danger to any PLA aircraft operating over Taiwan, which could fly at a higher altitude than the remaining short-range SAMs and air-defense guns could reach,” RAND noted. “This would enable an efficient attack on Taiwan’s air bases following ballistic missile attacks to cut the runways and trap aircraft that are not already in the air.”

RAND advised Taiwan to spend less money on vulnerable — and outnumbered — fighter planes and instead invest in new air-defense platoons equipped with new, mobile radars and missiles that could hide in forests and among hills and emerge after the ballistic missiles stopped falling. The think tank assumed these platoons would not use the existing Chaparrals.

Perhaps the most interesting Taiwanese application of the Chaparral is at sea. In 2015 the Taiwanese navy took delivery of a new, 20,000-ton-displacement supply ship named Panshih. In contrast to most of the world’s naval supply ships, Panshih is heavily armed — with, among other weapons, Chaparral missiles.

That means the vessel, which has hangar space for three helicopters, could double as a kind of poor-man’s amphibious assault ship during a naval war in the hotly-contested, and dangerous, China Seas.

David Axe served as a defense editor for the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article was first published in 2019.

Image: Creative Commons/Flickr. 

Peter Suciu

History, World

With just eighty-four discrete components the Model 12 is easy to break down, clean and put back together quickly.

Here's What You Need to Remember: While many Cold War-era submachine guns have been taken out of production and even service, the Italian-made Beretta Model 12S—the most recent version of the weapon, which has added safety features—remains in production and use and shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

As the world’s oldest firearms maker the Italian-based Beretta knows a thing or two about firearms. Since its founding in 1526, it has produced military weapons, and since the middle of the seventeenth century, its firearms have been used in every major European war. 

While some lists include its Model 1938 as being a lackluster submachine gun, one that was certainly overshadowed by the likes of the German MP40 and the American Thompson, the company produced one of the finest submachine guns of the Cold War era. 

This was the Model 12. 

Developed during the late 1950s by Italian arms engineer Domenico Salza, it was introduced in 1961 and became the standard submachine gun of the Italian Army. Chambered in the ubiquitous NATO 9x19-millimeter Parabellum cartridge the submachine gun was compact, reliable and accurate. It weighs just 7.5 pounds empty and with its stock folded is a more than manageable 16.5 inches, while with the stock extended is still just 25.4 inches. It was notable too for featuring a forward grip that made the weapon a bit more controllable than other submachine guns or even assault rifles of the era.

Its compact size is owed to the use of a telescopic bolt, which also reduces the upward movement of the muzzle when firing on full-auto. Unlike many of the other early postwar submachine guns, the Beretta Model 12 is available in selective fire as well and is quite accurate in its semiautomatic mode. 

The blowback-operated weapon has an effective range of 150 to 200 meters and a rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute. It is fed from a 20-, 32- and 40-round detachable box magazine. Also unlike many its contemporary submachine guns, this one features three safeties including a manual safety, which blocks the trigger; and automatic safety on the rear grip, which immobilizes the trigger and blocks the bolt into a closed position; and even a safety on the charging handle. The safety on the cocking handle blocks the bolt in case this is not fully retracted, thus preventing an accidental discharge. 

With just eighty-four discrete components the Model 12 is easy to break down, clean and put back together quickly.  

The Beretta Model 12 first saw action in the Vietnam War when it was used by members of the Viet Cong who were carrying the weapon. It has seen use in combat in the Lebanese Civil War, the Iran-Iraq War and most recently the Libyan Civil War. Stocks of the weapon were also reportedly used by the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Licensed copies of the Model 12 were made in Brazil by Taurus International, in Belgium by FN Herstal and in Indonesia by PT Pindad—and it is likely the Viet Cong-used weapons came from Indonesia. While many Cold War-era submachine guns have been taken out of production and even service, the Italian-made Beretta Model 12S—the most recent version of the weapon, which has added safety features—remains in production and use and shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

They are more zombies, than renewable.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Army reportedly saves roughly 50 percent of what it could cost to replace targets over buying new ones and it saves time, too. The old boosters make a more affordable but also far more effective target that can be used in weapon testing.

There have been calls for increased efforts to “recycle” over the years, but this hasn’t always been possible when it comes to military hardware. However, the U.S. Army is now recycling and reutilizing demilitarized rocket motors and even repurposing the materials to make test missiles.

In May 2018 the Army opened the Anniston Munitions Center’s Launch Rocket System Recycle (MLRS) facility at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. The facility enabled the Army to demilitarize the MLRS warheads, recycle the metal parts and reduce the aging munitions at a lower cost than previous options. 

The project was ten years in the making but came about via a partnership with Product Support Director for Demilitarization, The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command Missile Demilitarization Office, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research and Development and Engineering Center and several contracting firms. The facility was designed, built and tested to implement a safe capability for the closed system of demilitarization of M26 MLRS warheads and M77 sub-munitions.

Zombie Rockets 

The efforts have advanced, and this week Defense News reported that the Army’s efforts now include the creation of “zombies,” which are test missiles that save the Army from having to destroy old boosters and instead gives them new life. It might not be entirely green in terms of the materials being recycled, but instead these are being repurposed for use as targets for Patriot testing. 

In addition, the boosters have been used by the Missile Defense Agency and for foreign military sales test events. A zombie booster was the target used in a critical test that highlighted how the Patriot platform could be interoperable with the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) System. The Army acquired around two hundred THAAD rockets for its seven batteries and roughly forty launchers last year. 

The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) has seen production double to meet the needs for the U.S. Army and its allies and that means more testing will be required.  

This testing effort started several years ago when the Army’s Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space, as well as Patriot air and missile defense lower-tier product office, was running out of targets for tests and spending more money to buy the additional targets. 

The Army reportedly saves roughly 50 percent of what it could cost to replace targets over buying new ones and it saves time, too. The old boosters make a more affordable but also far more effective target that can be used in weapon testing. The Army has built seven targets to date, and Defense News indicated that these included three variants: Pathfinder Zombie; the Black Dagger Zombie that adds an additional booster—the Terrier MK70—for longer ranges; and Sabre, a shorter-range version. 

The targets will also be reported used in some of the upcoming tests to help Department of Defense (DoD) officials make decisions on the Lower-Tier Air-Defense Sensor (LTAMDS), the future radar for the U.S. Army’s Integrated Air-and-Missile Defense System to replace the Patriot. Unlike the more linear directional configuration of the existing Patriot air and missile defense system, the Raytheon-built LTAMDS is engineered with overlapping 120-degree arrays intended to seamlessly track approaching threats using a 360-degree protection envelope. 

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: Flickr.

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

The giant French submarine Surcouf’s mysterious fate made her the true Flying Dutchman of World War II.

Here's What You Need to Know: Neither the sub nor any member of her crew has been seen since the winter of 1942.

The legendary Flying Dutchman of maritime lore was a spectral ship of disastrous portent that haunted the high seas and endangered anyone who came into contact with it. If any real-life vessel fit that description, it was the French World War II submarine Surcouf. During her abortive wartime career, Surcouf displayed all the ghostly, rumor-generating characteristics of the Flying Dutcman. To this day, whispers and innuendos follow the ill-fated sub, which disappeared without a trace 65 years ago, making her a veritable lodestone of controversy, suspicion and latent fear.

The Cruiser Submarine

Surcouf’s genesis can be traced back to the waning days of World War I, when Imperial Germany deployed three large, powerful submarine cruisers designed specifically to be commerce raiders. The three new submarines, designated U-139, U-140, and U-141, were armed with two 5.9-inch deck guns mounted fore and aft of their conning towers. These cruisers, with an extended range of over 12,000 nautical miles, were tasked with taking the war to Allied seaborne commerce, from the Atlantic coast of the United States southward into the South Atlantic as far as the Cape of Good Hope. Illustrating the importance assigned to the new vessels, U-139 was placed under the command of Kapitanleutnant Lothar Von Arnauld de la Perriere, Germany’s leading U-boat ace. Arnauld sank six Allied ships totaling over 72,000 tons during his one brief patrol with U-139 in 1918.

Germany’s successful development of U-boat cruisers did not go unnoticed by opposing Allies. Great Britain, France, and the United States all were impressed by the apparent potential for the new weapon, and commenced developing similar vessels during the 1920s. But severe funding restrictions and improved defensive measures for merchant ships rendered the new concept less effective. By the late 1930s, submarine commerce raiders clearly had become obsolete, rendered ineffective by the implementation of enemy convoys that, acting in concert, could outgun and outspeed any submarine raider. By the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the United States and Great Britain had curtailed or abandoned their submarine commerce raider programs, partly out of fear that Japan, the rising sea power in the Pacific, might emulate the weapon if it proved successful.

The one maritime power that moved forward with development of a powerful submarine cruiser was France. After refusing to execute that part of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 that proposed the eventual abolition of submarine raiders, France began an aggressive construction program divided between oceangoing and coastal-type boats. Among the oceangoing submarines was Surcouf, the French Navy’s first and only cruiser submarine designed specifically for open-ocean surface raiding. Surcouf was begun in 1927 and eventually commissioned in May 1935, a lengthy period that was extended by continued revisions and additions to the sub’s design and armament.

When completed, Surcouf appeared to be a formidable vessel. She was the largest submarine in the world, displacing 3,404 tons submerged. She was 350 feet long, with a beam of over 29 feet. Powered by two 3,800-horsepower Sulzer diesel engines on the surface and two 1,700-horsepower electric motors for undersea propulsion, Surcouf had a range of 10,000 nautical miles and carried a crew of 120 men. The most formidable aspect of the vessel was her armament. She mounted two 8-inch guns in a twin turret located forward of the conning tower. Aft of the structure on deck was a watertight hangar containing a Besson/ANF Murceau MB-411 scout seaplane. The seaplane had two functions: to locate potential shipping targets over the horizon, and to spot the fall of shots from the submarine’s guns after she commenced an attack. Surcouf carried 600 rounds of 8-inch ammunition for her two guns, plus a wide optical range finder mounted high enough above the sea to give a seven-mile horizon. The giant submarine also carried a 16-foot-long motorboat and an internal compartment designed to house up to 40 prisoners. Surcouf was equipped with six external torpedo tubes, none of which could be fired when submerged. Sixteen spare torpedoes also were carried.

In the Service of the French Navy

Fittingly, Surcouf was named after France’s most famous privateer, Robert Surcouf (1773-1827). Classified as a common pirate by the British, Surcouf commanded the four-gun Creole during the 1793 war with Great Britain, capturing four British ships, breaking a blockade, and becoming a national hero. Obtaining an official letter of marque from the revolutionary government, Surcouf took over the 18-gun Clarisse, from which he captured six ships in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Switching to the 18-gun Confiance, he captured nine more British merchant ships, including the 38-gun Kent with a crew of nearly 400 men, plus a company of naval riflemen. This action made Surcouf a living legend in France and a public enemy in England, with a posted reward of five million francs for his capture. Named a baron of the empire by Napoleon in 1809, Surcouf lived out his life on the island of Mauritius, where he became a prosperous ship owner and merchant.

After her commissioning in 1935, Surcouf was stationed at Brest, a French submarine base with open access to the Atlantic Ocean. For the next four years, Surcouf operated sporadically in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, spending the vast majority of her at-sea time on the surface. Although she remained the world’s largest submarine, Surcouf revealed several serious problems in design and safety. The boat was cumbersome, rolling alarmingly in heavy seas, and her diesel engines were unreliable. She also leaked continuously through and around the gun turrets. Most serious was her slow diving time, which required four or five times as long to submerge to periscope depth as smaller, conventional submarines. Lacking radar, Surcouf was vulnerable to attacks from the air.

With the fall of France to Nazi Germany in June 1940, Surcouf’s crew faced a confusing political situation. Many crewmen had divergent loyalties, and all feared that their families or friends remaining in France might be badly treated by the occupying Germans if Surcouf threw in with the Royal Navy. Her crew members might also be treated as traitors when they returned to France, which now had a collaborationist government based at Vichy. On June 15, Surcouf’s commanding officer, Captain Paul Martin, was warned that Brest would be captured by the Germans within three days. Acting promptly, Martin sailed Surcouf toward the British naval base at Plymouth, docking five days later alongside the French battleship Paris.

After an incident with British boarders, Surcouf’s crew was given the option of repatriation to France or returning to their submarine under the aegis of the new Free French navy. Only 16 officers and men opted to serve aboard Surcouf; Captain Martin chose repatriation. Captain Pierre Ortoli, second senior officer in the Free French navy, was named Surcouf’s new commander. His executive officer was Lt. Cmdr. Louis Blaison, a holdover from the former crew. The remainder of the sub’s new crew was recruited from French naval officers and sailors stranded in England, many of whom, like Ortoli himself, had little or no prior training in submarines.

A Troublesome Ship and Crew

The question arose in the British Admiralty of what to do with Surcouf. Initially, the submarine was the responsibility of the Royal Navy Vice Admiral Max Horton, who was the navy’s flag officer for submarines. Horton concurred with dockyard experts at Plymouth that Surcouf was essentially useless as an effective combat vessel, but Free French leader Charles de Gaulle insisted that the sub be sent to sea as a symbol of French greatness. Unwilling to overrule de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill instructed Horton to keep the vessel on active service.

Led by an inexperienced commanding officer and an equally unprepared crew, Surcouf readied for combat. On November 30, 1940, Horton ordered Surcouf north to the Royal Navy training base in the Clyde region of Scotland. Surcouf spent less than two weeks training, insufficient time for a ship burdened by eight months of enforced idleness and an essentially novice crew and commander. Horton, still convinced that Surcouf was unfit to operate in cruiser mode, decided to send her to Canada to operate as a convoy escort in the western Atlantic, where there would be no threat from German air attacks. Surcouf duly departed Clyde for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on February 19, 1941, arriving six days behind schedule and spending nearly a month in port for additional repairs. Ortoli exacerbated tensions between the crew and their hosts by forcing the men to live onboard their crowded submarine while in port, sparking rumors of aloofness about the crew.

Surcouf finally joined an easterly bound convoy on April 1 as an escort vessel. The ship became a target for malicious rumors among other sailors, who suggested that she was more a threat than a protective escort. Horton eventually ordered Surcouf to break away from the convoy and proceed to Devonport naval yard at Plymouth. German warplanes attacked Plymouth soon afterward, and Surcouf suffered one man killed and six injured. The Besson float plane and motorboat were damaged and removed from the submarine, never to return. Surcouf’s crew, still forced to live in crowded conditions aboard ship, became even more divided and depressed by events.

Still confronted with the task of creating a viable mission for the submarine, Horton decided to send Surcouf to the South Atlantic, a region largely devoid of hostile enemy aircraft but one in which German surface raiders were sinking Allied merchant ships. He reasoned that Surcouf might actually sink one of the raiders with her superior firepower, thus quelling rumors about her mixed loyalty. Accordingly, Surcouf sailed for Bermuda on May 14, arriving a month later. She departed from Bermuda for her first war patrol on June 30. The effort was a complete disaster. Three major electrical failures ensued aboard ship, compounded by a fire in the switch gear room and an incomprehensible dive with the conning tower hatch improperly closed, which resulted in flooding and the release of chlorine gas within the pressure hull. Surcouf limped back to Bermuda on July 20.

The United States Navy granted Surcouf priority to receive a complete overhaul at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire. The submarine sailed from Bermuda on July 25, arriving at Portsmouth three days later. It soon became obvious that the ship required a total refitting, one that would require more money than her original building cost. Meanwhile, morale among the crew was adversely affected at Portsmouth. The United States had not yet entered the war, and Republican-dominated New Hampshire remained a stronghold for isolationism. In nearby Canada, there was a strong pro-Vichy movement, exacerbated by rumors that American President Franklin Roosevelt did not like or trust Charles de Gaulle. Ortoli was removed from command and replaced by Blaison, and Surcouf returned to Bermuda, only to sail back to Halifax on December 7. During the return voyage, Surcouf encountered the Norwegian tanker Atlantic, and the sub’s behavior was so bizarre that Atlantic broadcast a distress call, claiming that she was under attack by a large submarine flying the French flag. The misunderstanding was explained away as Blaison not knowing or executing proper procedures to stop and question a neutral merchant ship, but rumors continued to fly about which side of the war the submarine was really on.

While at Halifax, Surcouf took part in the controversial Free French invasion of two small islands under Vichy control 12 miles south of Newfoundland. Saint Pierre and Miquelon were important because they lay just off the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, near the point where Allied convoys assembled. The invasion was a near-bloodless success, but one that antagonized both Great Britain and the United States and cast Surcouf increasingly as a rogue submarine. The rumor mill came alive with stories that Surcouf had shelled an American destroyer in the area, supposedly killing two American sailors. Such tales only added to the ship’s reputation as an untrustworthy ally, but Roosevelt classified the occupation of the islands as “a tempest in a teapot” and moved on with his conduct of the war.

Surcouf sailed from Halifax to Bermuda on February 3, 1942, arriving four days later. British Admiral Sir Charles Kennedy-Purvis sent Horton a top-secret message stating that Surcouf “is of no operational value and is little short of a menace.” British intelligence officers reported that over half of the ship’s crew was pro-Vichy and could not be trusted to serve the Allied war effort. Horton concurred, directing Surcouf to sail from Bermuda to French-controlled Tahiti, where her 8-inch guns might be effective in defending the islands against a possible Japanese invasion, and her loyalty—or lack thereof—might not be so striking.

The submarine departed Bermuda for Colon, en route to Tahiti, on February 12, sailing unescorted through an area now active with German U-boats. Because Surcouf had only one operational electric motor necessary for underwater propulsion, she was forced to steam on the surface, using just one of her two propellers and limited to a speed of 10 knots. In keeping with her previous suspicious behavior and rumors, the submarine never arrived at Colon. No distress message was received from Surcouf after she departed Bermuda, and no trace of her ever was found.

Theories Behind the Disappearance

What had happened to the now-notorious submarine? A convincing case can be made that Surcouf was lost after a collision at sea with the U.S. merchant freighter Thompson Lykes on the night of February 18. Under charter by the U.S. Army, Thompson Lykes had departed Colon bound for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that afternoon. At 11:28 pm, her crow’s-nest lookout reported seeing a white light one point off her starboard bow. Shortly afterward, the light appeared dead ahead, and before the rudder could be shifted to full right, Thompson Lykes struck something squarely in the water. The impact was followed a few seconds later by a loud explosion and a sheet of flame on both sides of the merchant ship’s bow. Captain Henry Johnson burst onto the bridge and turned on the ship’s navigation lights, activated a searchlight, and brought his vessel around to pass through the impact point in search of survivors. There was nothing at the scene but the smell of oil. No survivors or wreckage of any kind came to the surface.

Crew members and U.S. Army passengers aboard Thompson Lykes reported that they had seen something long and cigar-shaped pass down the freighter’s port side and disappear into the darkness astern. Thompson Lykes remained searching the area until 10:45 the next morning, when she was relieved by a U.S. Navy destroyer and returned to Colon for repairs. A subsequent Coast Guard inquiry concluded that the collision between Thompson Lykes and the unknown other vessel was purely accidental, asserting that “the collision was caused by the operation of two vessels on intersecting courses, without lights due to the exigencies of war.”

Unsurprisingly, Surcouf’s mysterious disappearance fueled rumors that the sub had been deliberately sunk by the British or Americans. Such tales rested on the premise that the Surcouf’s crew was loyal to the Vichy government and had taken over the ship during or after her last stop in Bermuda. One variation on the theory alleged that at least one of Surcouf’s officers was a Nazi submariner, fluent in French, who had infiltrated the submarine during her recruiting efforts in Great Britain. The British supposedly became privy to the situation and placed two mines on the exterior of Surcouf’s hull, set to detonate in deep water. A still unexplained letter from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to the director of naval intelligence in Washington, dated March 12, 1942, asserted that according to a “highly confidential source,” Surcouf had been sunk off the island of Martinique on March 3.

Speculation continued to run rampant on Bermuda and elsewhere following Surcouf’s disappearance. One rumor asserted that Surcouf had attempted to torpedo the huge Allied troop carrier Queen Mary as she departed Boston. According to another tale, the sub was observed refueling a German U-boat and was promptly sunk by the American experimental submarines Marlin and Mackerel or by a Coast Guard blimp. Further departing from the realm of reality, other tales asserted that Surcouf was lost in the infamous Bermuda Triangle or sunk in Long Island Sound while carrying a huge cargo of French government gold in her large prisoner compound. Famed French aquanaut Jacques Cousteau was said to have located and dived on the wreck site in 1967, but he remained unaccountably silent about his findings.

No documentation or evidence has ever been discovered to confirm any of the foregoing tales, although one verifiable event detailed the bombing and sinking of a “very large” submarine lying low in the water by the U.S. 3rd Bombardment Squadron operating out of Rio Hato airfield in Panama at 9 am on February 19, 1942. Coming one day after Thompson Lykes had collided with an unidentified vessel at sea, the bombed submarine conceivably could have been the mortally damaged Surcouf. Why she would have been bombed by American planes was left unexplained.

An object of rumor, speculation, and conjecture while she was afloat, Surcouf continues to arouse speculation today, 65 years after her disappearance. Neither the sub nor any member of her crew has been seen since the winter of 1942, fueling her unwanted but unavoidable reputation as the true Flying Dutchman of World War II.

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network in 2007.

Image: Flickr

Mark Episkopos

S-500, Europe

The S-500 is less of a pure “successor” to the S-400 than it is an entirely new weapon, designed to fulfill a different—though not necessarily more important—set of strategic tasks.

In what may be one of the consequential defense developments of 2021, Russia’s next-generation S-500 missile defense system is on the cusp of entering service.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko told the defense publication Krasnaya Zvezda that the Russian military plans to complete state trials of the next generation S-500 surface-to-air/anti-missile system sometime in 2021, with its introduction into service to follow in the same year. "Next year, it is planned to complete trials and introduce into service the S-500 missile system and the Voronezh radar that works in the meter range of wavelengths," he said in a late December 2020 interview.

The S-500, also known as the Triumfator-M, has had a rocky research and development path. Its development was declared to be completed as early as 2011, with serial production expected to begin in 2014. That date was unceremoniously pushed back to 2017, and again to 2020. Krivoruchko’s revised 2021 estimate is one to which he has stuck throughout 2020, with the Russian defense official likewise adding that serial S-500 deliveries are expected to begin in 2025. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has previously expressed his interest in jointly producing the S-500 with Russia, though the state of those talks between Moscow and Ankara in 2021 is ambiguous. The first S-500 regiments are exceedingly likely to protect Moscow and the areas surrounding it— beyond that, Russia’s deployment plans for its new system remain unclear.

The much-anticipated “successor” to the S-400 boasts a slew of best-in-class performance features. Triumfator-M is widely believed to be capable of engaging ballistic missiles at a range of up to 600 kilometers and enemy aircraft at roughly 500 km, an exponential improvement over the S-400. Outfitted with new homing warheads, Russia’s upcoming air defense system can track and target up to ten missile warheads flying at a speed of over 4 miles per second. The S-500’s 77N6 series of missiles is reportedly capable of intercepting hypersonic cruise missiles and ICBM’s, as well as other aerial objects flying at speeds of over five Mach. The manufacturer, Almaz-Antey, maintains that the S-500 can even threaten certain types of low-orbit satellites, though the full extent of the S-500’s capabilities at extremely high altitudes remains to be determined.

It is unknown how many S-500s are scheduled for delivery, and how quickly. Nevertheless, it would be a financial and technical nonstarter for the Kremlin to attempt to replace every S-400 regiment with the costly and sophisticated S-500. Instead, it appears that the Triumfator-M is intended to serve alongside the S-400 into the coming decades as a longer-range and more situationally capable complement. With its advanced tracking and targeting capabilities, it can bolster existing S-300 and S-400 systems with an additional layer of defense against saturation strikes. Nevertheless, it promises a fundamentally new level of performance against niche, but existential threats like hypersonic weapons.

In that sense, the S-500 is less of a pure “successor” to the S-400 than it is an entirely new weapon, designed to fulfill a different—though not necessarily more important— set of strategic tasks. 

Mark Episkopos is the new national security reporter for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Security, Eurasia

It isn’t surprising that New Delhi would express interest in the next-generation tank.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The time is good, as Russia has also been eager to find customers to help subsidize the cost of the tanks—and the Russian Army, which initially planned to acquire upwards of 2,300 of the tanks between 2015 and 2020 has scaled back its acquisition significantly, so much so that it led to a cancelation of the main production run.

Last month Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced that the production of the T-14 Armata Main Battle Tank (MBT) was underway, and that followed the news that Moscow was planning to start to work with foreign customers next year and already received several prior requests. Among the potential buyers include Egypt, Vietnam and Belarus but also India.

It isn’t surprising that New Delhi would express interest in the next-generation tank, which is based on the Armata Universal Combat Platform. During the Cold War, India used a mix of western and Soviet-bloc military equipment and the Indian Air Force (IAF) operates Russian jet fighters. In June, it was also announced that India would purchase twenty-one MiG-29 supersonic fighter jets to replace the aging MiG-21 fighters already in service with the IAF, along with around a dozen Sukho Su-30 MkI multi-role fighters.

New Delhi may see Washington as a potential partner against Beijing, but it is still in Moscow where the Indian military does its shopping. Currently, approximately 86 percent of India’s military equipment is Russian in origin according to a Stimson Center working paper.

The T-14 could be seen to give the Indian Army a powerful deterrent to China, which is also unlikely to purchase the Russian-made tank. The Chinese arms maker Norinco produces the VT-4—and Beijing has maintained that the tank is among the best in the world. It is currently China’s premier export tank, but it is also built on technology and designs behind the earlier Al-Khalid tank that was developed with cooperation from Pakistan. However, the engines for the tank had to be sourced from the Ukraine—a fact that has been a sore spot for the Chinese designers.

Whether the VT-4 is in the same league as the T-14 is of course debatable. However, China's Type 15—while lighter than the Type 99—also seems to be purpose-built for an engagement with India. It can clear rough terrain and operate in high-altitude better than other and notably larger tanks. 

However, the main point is that India currently fields tanks that can be accurately described as antiquated—and this includes its force of T-72 MBTs. Clearly, New Delhi knows it has to up its game.

The time is good, as Russia has also been eager to find customers to help subsidize the cost of the tanks—and the Russian Army, which initially planned to acquire upwards of 2,300 of the tanks between 2015 and 2020 has scaled back its acquisition significantly, so much so that it led to a cancelation of the main production run. However, Russia has continued to forge ahead with the platform—even after one was reportedly destroyed by “terrorist forces” in Syria with a rather low-tech TOW-2B anti-tank system.

The T-14 tank, which is based on the Armata platform, was shown to the public for the first time at Red Square’s Victory Day parade on May 9, 2015. The new combat vehicle features fully digitized equipment, an unmanned turret and an isolated armored capsule for the crew. It was among the military hardware displayed at last month’s Army-2020 international arms show, which was held outside of Moscow.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters

Robert Farley

Security, Americas

Some may claim they are overrated, but they have served their purpose.

Key point: Some of these weapons are useful and some maybe were not worth the cost. As for nuclear weapons, it is good they have never been used but they also arguably have helped to keep the peace.

“Overrated” is a challenging concept.  In sports, a player can be “great” and “overrated” at the same time.  Future Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter, for example, is quite clearly a “great” player, well deserving of the first ballot invitation he will likely receive.  However, as virtually all statistically minded aficionados of the game have noted, he is highly overrated (especially on defense) by the baseball press. Similarly, no one doubts that Kobe Bryant is an outstanding basketball player.  However, many doubt that he is quite as good as his fans (or the NBA commentariat) seem to believe.

The five weapons of war listed below are “overrated” in the sense that they occupy a larger space in the defense-security conversation than they really deserve.  Some of them are fantastic, effective systems, while others are not. All of them take up more ink than they should, and (often) distract from more important issues of warfighting and defense contracting.

Nuclear Weapons:

Nuclear weapons have, in an important sense, dominated international diplomacy for the last six decades. What they haven’t dominated is warfare, where they appear to be nearly useless in all configurations.

The United States designed much of its doctrine and force structure around the potential for atomic warfare in the first half of the Cold War.  Carrier aircraft were developed to deliver nukes, and the system of fleet air defense changed dramatically over concerns about tactical nuclear attack.  The Air Force built itself around the idea of a strategic nuclear offensive, deep into the Soviet Union.  The Army expected to deliver (and absorb) huge numbers of tactical nukes in a NATO-Warsaw Pact fight.

But since World War II, the United States has eschewed the use of nuclear weapons, even against capable non-nuclear opponents.  Because of the deep political complexity associated with their employment, the weapons simply have too little battlefield and strategic impact for the US to seriously entertain their use.

We very occasionally make veiled threats of the combat use of nukes, we often use nukes as diplomatic chips, and we certainly enjoy the deterrent umbrella than the strategic nuclear forces provide.  But the weapons themselves haven’t helped us win a war since 1945, even then under arguable circumstances.

This tension between weapons of war and weapons of diplomacy will continue to have a big effect on Navy and Air Force procurement.  Both services are legitimately concerned about the amount of warfighting capability they will lose from updating their legacy nuclear systems (ICBMs and SSBNs), systems that will almost certainly never fire in anger.

The A-10 Warthog:

No aircraft could live up to the legend that the Warthog has become.

The story of the A-10 is relatively well known.  Seeking to head off the growth of Army aviation, the Air Force proposed a ground attack aircraft to replace the A-1 Skyraider. The Air Force has never been enamored of the ground support mission, but it supported the A-10 (along with the “defense reform” movement of the 1970s and 1980s), eventually bringing several hundred Warthogs into the fleet.

Originally, the Warthog was expected to kill Soviet tanks, blunting a Warsaw Pact offensive into Germany, presumably at extremely high cost to the Warthogs themselves. The Cold War ended, however, and the Warthog only performed this role in Kuwait, where it devastated Iraqi Army forces in 1991.

Today, the A-10 is a useful counter-insurgency aircraft, although probably less useful than a dedicated, purpose built light attack aircraft like the A-29 Super Tucano. And the Warthog undoubtedly has problems. In a force that still enjoys the C-130 and B-52, we should hesitate to accuse any aircraft of excessive age. Nevertheless, the A-10 is old. It was designed for a foe much different than those we’re fighting today and those we anticipate fighting in the future.

But after years of Air Force efforts to retire the aircraft (and Army resistance to those aircraft), it has acquired such symbolic resonance that almost no one evaluates it objectively.  To take a position on the A-10 is to take a position on the importance of close air support, and on sixty years of Army-Air Force relations.  This dissonance lends itself to hyperbole on the part of both supporters and opponents.

But this is the other problem; even if the A-10 isn’t the ideal platform for modern close air support, it’s better than most of the options the Air Force is currently suggesting. And many (including some in Congress) view saddling the USAF with the A-10 as a way of ensuring the Air Force’s continued commitment to the close air support mission.

National Missile Defense (NMD):

The United States has wasted extraordinary resources over the past three decades on the phantom of national missile defense.  The current system of systems involves Aegis sea-based interceptors, Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, and Terminal High Altitude Air Defense. Anticipated systems include both airborne and laser components.

Theater missile defense has made enormous strides, as has sea-based missile defense built around the Aegis SAM system. Theater systems, focused on conventional ballistic missile attack, can substantially reduce damage to civilian areas and to military installations.  Where conventional munitions are concerned, hitting 75% of the incoming warheads is very helpful.

The problem is that National Missile Defense is conceptually challenged. Anyone psychotic enough to attack the U.S. homeland with a nuclear weapon cannot be deterred through usual means anyway, and any defense system that is not foolproof (to a degree much higher than a system like Iron Dome, which protects only against rockets) cannot be relied upon when nuclear missiles are at stake.  No President will ever rely on a National Missile Defense system that is merely 90% effective. Moreover, national missile defense encourages potential foes to develop other means of delivery, or to adopt innovative targeting procedures.

This relates to the technical problems posed by the system.  The bar for success for NMD is extremely high, given that we are tasking it with the protection of our cities.  The high bar gives potential foes many opportunities for disruption.  Relatively cheap, easy to deploy decoys can confused NMD systems.  Ballistic missiles with maneuver capabilities can potentially avoid interceptors.  The onus, unfortunately, lies with the defender; any attacker innovation that renders NMD even marginally less effective makes it politically useless.

In other words, the proponents of National Missile Defense seek not a weapon of war, but rather a weapon of diplomacy.  Unfortunately, NMD has struggled both logically and technically, and has yet (after decades of effort and expense) to produce a reliable, effective system.

Tomahawk Missile:

The Tomahawk missile is the symbol of post-Cold War American power. The U.S. Navy (USN) launched the first waves of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles against Iraq in 1991, and it has used the missiles in every conflict since.  The Tomahawk gives the U.S. the opportunity to deliver military messages without endangering pilots, and also a chance to bust open the doors of integrated air defense networks. 

However, the missile has grown long in the tooth. Competitive cruise missile systems in China and India boast much higher speeds, as well as evasive characteristics.  These missiles are considerably more deadly to surface ships than the Tomahawk (indeed, the last anti-ship versions of the Tomahawk were converted years ago), but can also threaten well-defended military installations on land.

To be sure, there are some things that the Tomahawk will always be able to do well, including strikes against opponents who lack sophisticated air defense systems. Moreover, Raytheon has plans for a wide variety of Tomahawk upgrades, which would allow the venerable missile to continue to perform its mission into the future.  These upgrades include adding sensors to the missile, making it easier for the missile to strike moving targets, and providing for loiter time over the target site.

But as with all weapons, the basic architecture of the missile limits the extent of upgrade. The United States is working on a replacement, the LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile), which was initially intended to fly at supersonic speeds.  Testing went poorly, and the most recent versions will travel at subsonic speed.

The Tomahawk is a good missile, a useful missile, but it’s no longer the best missile available.

Predator Drone:

The Predator drone has, through little fault of its own, become the face of American airpower during the Wars on Terror. The idea of Predator launched strikes has come to dominate how international society view the War on Terror, and how, more broadly, it understands the role of the United States.

The Predator is a fine little airplane, but it has its issues for sure.  It flies slow, doesn’t carry much ordnance, and can’t maneuver worth a damn.  A Predator once tried to ambush an Iraqi MiG-25 in air-to-air combat, but failed utterly. Simply put, the Predator cannot operate in a contested environment.  This means that it cannot significantly contribute to combat over a wide range of potential conflict zones, including Ukraine, Syria, and any serious conflict in the East or South China Seas.

The effectiveness of the Predator is an artifact of the peculiar political conditions of the War on Terror, where states (like Pakistan) want US airstrikes against insurgents, but also want to deny that they want such strikes. The weaknesses of the Predator, ironically, serve to embarrass some American allies.  The Pakistani military cannot plausibly claim that Predators flying over Pakistani airspace do so without its permission.

But these facts have barely dented the popular perception of the Predator. In addition to its role as a reconnaissance and strike aircraft, the Predator serves as a sponge for vitriol that would be better directed at the policies of the U.S., Yemeni, and Pakistani governments.

The Predator is the Etrich Taube of the drone set; the first mass production drone with a sufficiently flexible architecture to undertake a wide variety of missions. It’s an important aircraft, but hardly one that deserve the attention it has received.

Conclusion:

To reiterate, using the concept “overrated” requires evaluating the difference between reality and hype.  The family can include useless weapons that have a veneer of utility, or good weapons that have acquired legendary status. Most of the weapons described above are useful, within careful limits. Some aren’t.  In all cases, however, our national security conversation would be better served by appreciating the limits, as well as the promise.

Robert Farley is a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter:@drfarls. This first appeared in July 2014 and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters

David Axe

Security,

With the Marines giving up on their radar-equipped drone, the small carriers likely will lack the wide sensor coverage that the bigger vessels can project.

Here's What You Need to Remember: A possible move to smaller carriers comes with its own cost. Lighting carriers might be cheaper than supercarriers are, but they carry far fewer planes than the bigger vessels do and can sustain fewer sorties.

The U.S. Marine Corps has chosen not to develop a ship-launched drone for the airborne early-warning role.

The decision weighs on the U.S. Navy’s plan to deploy some of its amphibious assault ships as “Lightning carriers” embarking as many as 20 F-35B stealth fighters.

The Marines had been counting on a variant of their in-development Marine Air Ground Task Force Unmanned Expeditionary Capabilities drone, or MUX, to carry a powerful radar in order to help manage air battles around amphibious groups.

But a big radar proved to be too heavy for the drone, Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Aviation Lt. Gen. Steven Rudder told USNI News. The weight of the radar limited the vehicle’s endurance.

So instead of equipping the ship-launched drone with the radar, the Corps plans to add the sensor to a land-based vehicle.

“I think what we discovered with the MUX program is that it’s going to require a family of systems,” Rudder said. “Power output and weight capacity, obviously you get more weight and power output with a ground-based system with a longer runway, expeditionary runway, than you can coming vertically off the back of a ship. Shipboard compatibility continues to be a challenge for all our air vehicles.”

The shift to a land-based AEW drone could deprive Lightning carriers of an important capability. Radar planes such as the Navy’s E-2 help to spot targets and coordinate allied forces.

But AEW planes tend to be large. So large that only big carriers with catapults and arrestor wires, such as the U.S. Navy’s Nimitz- and Ford-class vessels and the French navy’s Charles de Gaulle, can launch and land them.

The Lightning carriers lack catapults and wires and can support only short-takeoff and vertically-landing aircraft. The British and Russian navies use radar-equipped helicopters for at-sea early-warning. The U.S. military doesn’t possess an AEW helicopter.

The Marines aimed to solve that problem by packing early-warning capability into a vertically-launching unmanned vehicle. Unfortunately for the service, that proved impossible.

The lack of organic AEW capability could become painful for the Navy and Marines as they look to expand on the Lightning-carrier concept. At present, only the fleet’s two America-class assault ships possess the facilities to support 20 vertical-landing F-35Bs.

But the Navy is reconsidering its long-term plans for at-sea aviation. The sailing branch in early 2020 launched a formal study of aviation-ship requirements after the current order for four Ford-class supercarriers.

The Navy’s new “Future Carrier 2030 Task Force” review dovetails with a second carrier study that’s underway inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The OSD study is due in the summer of 2020. It’s unclear when the Navy might release its own review.

Both studies could inform the Navy’s long-range shipbuilding plans and Congress’s own appropriations, which increasingly are shaping military force structure in the absence of feasible military planning.

One possible outcome is a greater emphasis on Lightning carriers. The U.S. fleet could opt to acquire more ships like America in addition to, or in place of, traditional supercarriers with their 60- or 70-plane air wings.

A 40,000-ton-displacement America-class vessel costs just $4 billion or so, compared to $14 billion for a supercarrier displacing 100,000 tons. In theory, the Navy could buy larger numbers of small carriers and distribute them more widely across the ocean, helping the fleet to avoid missile attacks.

But a possible move to smaller carriers comes with its own cost. Lighting carriers might be cheaper than supercarriers are, but they carry far fewer planes than the bigger vessels do and can sustain fewer sorties.

A Lightning carrier embarking 20 F-35s, compared to the roughly 40 strike fighters that a supercarrier normally carries, should be able to launch 40 sorties per day, the Marines estimated. A Ford-class supercarrier, by contrast, is supposed to be able to launch 160 sorties per day.

And with the Marines giving up on their radar-equipped drone, the small carriers likely will lack the wide sensor coverage that the bigger vessels can project.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This first appeared in August 2019.

Image: Flickr.

Michael Peck

Security, Europe

Was the King Tiger a great tank or simply hype?

Nazi Germany's Tiger is arguably the most famous tank of World War II. With its thick armor and devastating 88-millimeter gun, the Mark VI—or Tiger I—soon earned a devastating reputation on the battlefield.

Designed as a breakthrough tank for breaching enemy defenses, and allocated to a handful of special heavy tank battalions, the sixty-ton Tiger I seemed to have it all: firepower, armor and for an early 1940s vehicle that weighed as much as today's M-1 Abrams, it was fairly agile. With its square, castle-like shape and long cannon, the Tiger I even looked deadly. But Hitler's generals and weapons designers were not satisfied. With Teutonic perfectionism, they complained that the Tiger I's KwK 36 gun was not the most powerful version of the 88-millimeter cannon (not that Allied tankers would have noticed the difference). Even before the Tiger I debuted on the battlefield (floundering in the swamps near Leningrad in an ill-advised attack in September 1942), work had begun on a successor.

Enter the Tiger II, or Konigstiger (King Tiger). At seventy-five tons, it was bigger than its predecessor. Its longer-barreled (and thus higher velocity) KwK 43 88-millimeter cannon could penetrate five inches of armor at a range of two kilometers (1.2 miles). With Sherman and T-34 crews having about two inches of frontal armor between them and eternity, no wonder a supersized Tiger must have seemed the devil on treads.

The Tiger II also featured numerous improvements over the Tiger I. The original Tiger had vertical armor, rather than the more effective sloped armor (effectively increasing armor thickness) found on the T-34 and the later German Panther. The King Tiger had well-sloped armor that was six inches thick on the front hull. Its turret could traverse 360 degrees in nineteen seconds, compared to sixty seconds for the Tiger I, which had theoretically allowed a fast-moving Sherman or T-34 to maneuver behind a Tiger I faster than the German tank's gun could track it.

Like a professional football player, the Tiger II was more agile than it looked. It had a road speed of about twenty-five miles per hour, versus about thirty for the Sherman and T-34. Cross-country speed was about ten miles per hour, versus about twenty miles per hour for the other two tanks. Author Thomas Jentz, the dean of Tiger historians, writes that despite its size, the Tiger II had surprisingly good tactical mobility. Unlike the megalomaniacal 200-ton German Maus, which couldn't even roll over many European bridges, the King Tiger was a viable design.

Late war Germans tanks like the Tiger and Panther had a reputation for being over-engineered and mechanically finicky. As with any sophisticated weapon, the Tiger II did suffer from reliability issues, especially at the hands of the poorly trained and inexperienced tank drivers of the late war German army. But given a skilled crew and proper logistics support, the Tiger II was fairly reliable, according to Jentz. The problem was that by the time the King Tiger made its combat debut in Normandy in July 1944, the necessities that Nazi Germany most lacked was trained, experienced tank crews and fuel and logistics support.

Which brings us to the question dear to every treadhead: Was the King Tiger a great tank? As with all weapons, the answer is: it depends. In terms of the triad of metrics for tanks—firepower, armor and mobility—the Tiger II was quite impressive. It was probably better than its American rival, the lighter and less heavily armored forty-six-ton American M-26 Pershing. A more interesting question is the King Tiger versus the Soviet IS-2 Stalin tank. There are all sorts of conflicting data and opinions on this duel, though an encounter between IS-2s and King Tigers in August 1944 destroyed or damaged ten tanks on either side. One flaw of the IS-2, whose powerful 122-millimeter gun could theoretically penetrate a King Tiger's thickly armored turret at one-mile range—was its low rate of fire and limited onboard ammunition supply. Had the war continued until 1946, the King Tiger would probably have met its match in the British Centurion, one of the most successful tanks in history and still used today.

However, the most telling statistic is that while the Soviet Union produced nearly 3,900 IS-2s, Germany built just 492 Tiger IIs. The Soviets built more than 108,000 tanks, and the Americans eighty-eight thousand, because World War II was a contest of production that devoured material at an appalling rate. Less than 500 King Tigers, no matter how powerful, were not going to change the outcome.

Ironically, the King Tiger's most deadly predator wasn't other tanks, but Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers. The German army ordered 1,500 Tiger IIs, but RAF raids on manufacturer Henschel's factories slashed production. An earlier Tiger I cost 250,000 Reichsmarks, two to three times as much as smaller German tanks such as the Panther or Mark IV. Would Germany have been better off with a greater number of lighter tanks, especially the heavier Panther? Given the current American preference for expensive weapons like aircraft carriers and F-35 fighters, this question still resonates.

Weapons are extremely situational items. A tank that functions well in one setting might prove a failure in another. By the time the Tiger II made its combat debut in Normandy in July 1944, Germany was on the defensive. Big tanks like the King Tiger were mobile fortresses if properly sited in ambush positions. But on the attack, advancing down narrow, icy roads as the Tiger II did during the Battle of the Bulge, big, heavy fuel-guzzling tanks could be a liability. One problem with both the Tiger I and II was that they were so big relative to other German tanks, that the only vehicle that could tow a damaged Tiger was another Tiger. As the German armies retreated in the East and West, many of these behemoths were abandoned or blown up by their own crews.

Heavy tanks like the King Tiger proved a dead end. After 1945, nations switched to building main battle tanks that had sufficient firepower and armor to breach enemy defenses, like heavy tanks, while being mobile enough to exploit breakthroughs like medium and light tanks.

The day of the Tiger had passed.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Image: Tiger Tank. Author: Hohum. Wikimedia Commons: Creative Commons 3.0

This article was first published in 2016.

 

 

 

Ethen Kim Lieser

Politics, Americas

Sadly, too many people have bought into a lot of nonsense around the coronavirus and the vaccines.

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has admitted that he is indeed surprised by the amount of “crazy and evil” conspiracy theories about him that have spread on social media over the course of the yearlong coronavirus pandemic.

“Nobody would have predicted that I and Dr. (Anthony) Fauci would be so prominent in these really evil theories,” he told Reuters. “I’m very surprised by that. I hope it goes away.”

Gates, who stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in 2014, has already committed nearly $2 billion through his philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to assist in the global response to the ongoing pandemic.

Some of the well-known conspiracy theories that have circulated on the internet include claims that Fauci and Gates created the pandemic to control populations and governments and that they aim to financially profit from the spread of the disease.

“But do people really believe that stuff?” Gates asked. “We’re really going to have to get educated about this over the next year and understand … how does it change people’s behavior and how should we have minimized this?”

The Microsoft co-founder, who has been warning about the threat of a global pandemic since 2015, added that he is pleased that under President Joe Biden, the United States has rejoined the World Health Organization and “that he’s appointed smart people, and the fact that Dr. Fauci won’t be suppressed.”

Gates had previously defended himself after a poll from a Yahoo News/YouGov survey revealed that 28 percent of American adults actually believe theories claiming that he would implant microchips in billions of people to monitor their movements.

“We need to get the truth out there,” he said in an interview on CBS News. “I hope it’ll die down as people get the facts.”

Gates has also long voiced his concern that the potentially life-saving coronavirus vaccine doses won’t reach many of the world’s poor.

In The Goalkeepers Report released by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, modeling from Northeastern University was used to forecast that twice as many people could die from the pandemic if wealthy countries decide to hoard the first two billion vaccine doses.

“It shouldn’t just be the rich countries winning a bidding war (for a coronavirus vaccine),” he said during a recent conference call with reporters. “Misallocating the vaccine would cause dramatic additional deaths.”

The eye-opening report also noted that the pandemic disproportionately impacts women, racial and ethnic minority groups, and those living in extreme poverty.

“The pandemic, in almost every dimension, made inequity worse,” Gates said. “The poorer countries are suffering far more than the richer countries because of a lack of fiscal resources to go on.”

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

Security,

Here’s how.

A Navy Littoral Combat Ship is conducting coastal patrols for reconnaissance and countermine missions when it suddenly comes upon or discovers an approaching fleet of enemy ships. How many of them are there? How far away are they? What weapons might they be armed with? All of these questions, potentially answered by drones, surveillance planes, or even space-based nodes, would need to be cataloged, stored, and transmitted quickly to larger, more heavily armed surface vessels such as carrier strike groups, fixed-wing aircraft, ground-based command and control, and other data systems able to perform data analysis and connect maritime warfare “nodes” to one another.

Surface ships such as the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), rely upon a host of interwoven technologies intended to share key data in real-time—such as threat and targeting information, radar signal processing and fire control systems, systems which would need to share data in real-time to optimize combat performance.

This is why the Navy continues to make progress wiring its surface fleet for massive “interconnected” or networked maritime warfare operations by arming carriers, amphibious vessels, destroyers, and even submarines with an emerging ship-based combat communication system called CANES.

CANES, or Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services, is a radio and computer command and control system that is increasingly being cyber hardened and operated with greater levels of AI-enabled automation. The Navy has both been integrating and upgrading CANES across its surface fleet to cyber-harden its networks, migrate toward AI-enabled computing and add new levels of automation to streamline functionality. CANES gathers and transmits intelligence across domains and through both classified and unclassified networks. The faster and more efficiently data can be analyzed, stored, and shared, the more time Navy commanders may have to respond to a fast-evolving threat dynamic such as the aforementioned LCS scenario. 

The LCS, in particular, draws upon interconnected surface and anti-submarine “mission packages” to integrate anti-submarine warfare, countermine operations, and surface warfare technical systems woven together with the ship’s technical infrastructure. Among other things, the mission packages include ship-mounted guns and missiles along with helicopters, drones such as the Fire Scout, and various sonar systems—the kinds of things potentially enhanced by CANES consolidation of networked nodes potentially strengthened by AI-empowered analysis.

Navy developers say increasing cybersecurity, mission scope, and overall resiliency on the CANES networks depends on using a common engineering approach with routers, Satcom networks, servers, and computing functions. Nodes on CANES communicate using an automated digital networking system, or ADNS, which allows the system to connect with Satcom assets using multiband terminals. CANES consists of a number of hardware and software elements to include thousands of local area network (LAN) drops. 

Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters,

Robert Farley

Security, Europe

This fighter will get basic jobs done without breaking budgets.

Key point: This jet fighter is good in a dog fight and has served well across Europe. It may not be a high-end stealth fighter, but it is a decent multi-national design.

The Eurofighter Typhoon has joined the Dassault Rafale, the Saab Gripen, and the Sukhoi “Flanker” in pursuit of a growing niche in the international fighter market. These aircraft offer capabilities beyond the Generation 4 platforms developed in the 1970s, but don’t carry the costs and complications of stealth. While the Eurofighter has enjoyed outstanding technical success thus far, the market niche may not be large enough to sustain production over time.

This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Origins:

In the 1970s, several Western European countries perceived a need for a new fighter aircraft. Older designs, often acquired from the United States, were reaching the end of the mature stages of their development, and desperately needed replacement. These included the F-4 Phantom and the F-104 Starfighter. The United States had developed the F-15 and F-16 in the 1970s, and the Soviets were threatening to leave the Europeans behind with the combination of the MiG-29 and Su-27.

The relative success of the multinational Panavia Tornado project had led to a heavy fighter that could conduct both penetrating strike and interception missions. The countries associated with the Tornado investigated several different projects for a lighter fighter optimized for air superiority missions. Spain, having joined NATO in 1982, also became part of the project, which had the side effect of reinvigorating the European military aviation industry.

France, an early partner, eventually dropped out over concerns about its domestic aviation industry, and the need for a carrier-capable variant. The Eurofighter project survived the collapse of defense spending at the end of the Cold War, with a prototype first flying in 1994. Operational Typhoons (continuing a naming convention that had begun with the Tornado) started entering service in 2003.

Concept:

Around 450 Typhoons have entered service, with another 150 or so on order. The Typhoon incorporates lessons learned from fourth-generation fighters, while also including some capabilities associated with fifth-generation aircraft. The Typhoon has a top speed of Mach 2, a high service ceiling, an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio, and “supercruise” capabilities. Current Typhoons carry the last mechanically scanned radar array to be deployed in an advanced fighter, although new electronically scanned arrays may eventually replace these radars in older models. These features allow it to operate in teams that include either older fighters, or new aircraft such as the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 JSF.

In exercises, the Typhoon has quickly established a reputation as one of the world’s most formidable dogfighters, with high maneuverability and energy preservation characteristics. Advanced helmet and g-suit equipment allows Typhoon pilots to take advantage of these qualities to excellent effect. The Typhoon also has excellent Beyond-Visual Range (BVR) combat capabilities, carrying the AIM-120 missile and having a lower radar cross-section than any fourth-generation fighter. Although not a stealth fighter, the Typhoon design included some low observable qualities, as well as significant electronic warfare capabilities. Typhoons will soon begin to carry the MBDA Meteor long-range missile in operational capacity, which will only increase the lethality of the platform.

The Typhoon has trailed behind some contemporaries in air-ground capabilities, but upgrades to equipment and munitions have helped close that gap over the last few years. In Libya, the Royal Air Force needed to operate its Typhoons alongside older Tornados because the Eurofighters lacked advanced ground targeting capabilities. RAF Typhoons have also operated against ISIS, sometimes in spectacular fashion.

Export:

Within Europe, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, and the United Kingdom have all purchased the Typhoon. Of these, only Austria is outside the initial design consortium. The Typhoon has struggled a bit to find customers outside of Europe. Various bids to sell the aircraft to Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American customers have failed, as the aircraft has run up against tightening defense budgets and tough competition from the F-35, the Gripen, the Rafale, and an apparently endless series of Su-27 variants.

The Typhoon is subject to ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) restrictions, because it contains certain elements of US technology. However, the aircraft has seen success mainly in the Middle East, where it currently serves in the Royal Saudi Air Force. Oman and Kuwait have also arranged for purchase of the Typhoon, and Eurofighter continues to pursue bids with other Middle Eastern countries.

Conclusion:

The development of the Typhoon did not clear the field of European fighter contenders. France, with its own aviation industry and its own specialized requirements (including carrier takeoff and landing capability) and Sweden would produce their own fighters, which continue to compete with the Typhoon for export contracts. The F-35 has come to dominate the fighter acquisition plans of many European countries, sucking up money and attention that might have gone to the Typhoon.

Still, for an aircraft effectively designed by a multinational committee, the Eurofighter has performed well in service, and has won an excellent reputation among aviation experts. It will continue to serve alongside both fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, providing a bridge and offering capabilities that complement either type.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security, Asia

A new landing helicopter dock has been designed.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Japanese navy does not have a formal requirement for an LHD, but there’s an obvious gap in the fleet’s structure that an assault ship could fill. Tokyo is building up a force of 17 MV-22 tiltrotors, 52 AAV7s and six LCACs to carry marines into combat. But the landing craft, vehicles and rotorcraft require ships to transport them close to shore.

A Japanese shipbuilder is pitching a new amphibious assault ship that could transport the Japanese military’s new Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade marine force and its MV-22 tiltrotors.

Japan Marine United Corporation revealed, at the DSEI Japan 2019 exhibition in Chiba in late November 2019, its design for a new landing helicopter dock, or LHD.

The 19,000-ton-displacement vessel’s design features a floodable well deck for embarking two LCAC air-cushion landing craft plus 20 AAV7A1 amphibious assault vehicles. Its full-length flight deck boasts five marked landing spots for helicopters or tiltrotors. Two below-deck hangars have space for five more rotorcraft.

The crew would number 500. It’s unclear how many troops the ship could embark, but similar vessels in service with other navies typically carry 500 passengers for long missions and up to a thousand for shorter hauls.

The Japanese navy does not have a formal requirement for an LHD, but there’s an obvious gap in the fleet’s structure that an assault ship could fill. Tokyo is building up a force of 17 MV-22 tiltrotors, 52 AAV7s and six LCACs to carry marines into combat. But the landing craft, vehicles and rotorcraft require ships to transport them close to shore.

At present, Japan’s amphibious flotilla includes two Izumo-class big-deck assault ships that Tokyo is converting into light aircraft carriers for embarking F-35B jump jets. Another two light carriers are on order. In addition, the amphibious fleet includes two Hyuga-class helicopter carriers and Osumi-class three landing ship tanks, or LSTs.

The navy is updating the three LSTs to support V-22s and AAV7s. But the LSTs each can carry just 330 troops on long missions. Tokyo’s marine brigade numbers 3,000 personnel. If the Japanese fleet aims to deploy the entire brigade in one amphibious group, it needs more ships.

Acquiring LHDs also would align Japan’s navy with allied and rival fleets. The U.S. Navy has 10 LHDs, including one that sails from a base in Japan. The Australian navy has two LHDs. The South Korean fleet is building three. The Chinese navy in September 2019 launched its own first LHD.

“For Japan, even a small fleet of LHDs could allow the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade to flex its muscles more throughout East Asia and elsewhere in the Pacific, where the country has increasingly diverse security concerns,” Joe Trevithick explained at The War Zone.

North Korea presents an immediate threat and has recently begun conducting increasingly worrisome missile launches, among other shows of force. This has already prompted Japanese authorities to make a number of defense-related investments, including the acquisition of Aegis Ashore missile defense sites equipped with Lockheed Martin's new AN/SPY-7(V)1 Solid State Radar. North Korean belligerence has also been a factor in the decision to integrate the F-35B onto the Izumo-class ships. ...

The current Japanese government has also shown that it is eager to be involved in challenging China's broad and controversial claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea and potentially expand its ability to conduct military activities farther beyond its borders in service to Japan's broader foreign policy aims.

The Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade is seen as an important component of these efforts and elements of the unit have been participating in increasing numbers of multinational exercises in the Pacific region in recent years. Just in October [2019], the brigade sent personnel to The Philippines to join that country and the United States in the annual Kamandag exercise.

Shipbuilder JMU told Jane’s that in coming years it expects the Japanese navy to announce a formal requirement for at least one LHD. The design is ready.

But there’s another way the Japanese fleet could complete its amphibious flotilla. “Japan may decide it is more cost-effective to develop a smaller landing platform dock-style ship as a direct follow-on to Osumi class, instead, which could then operate as part of a larger amphibious force in concert with the Izumos or Hyugas,” Trevithick noted.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

History, World

These warships were mighty in their day before the age of the battleship came to a close.

Key point: Battleships used to be the most powerful and valuable capital ships. Now, they have been superseded by aircraft carriers and nuclear missile submarines.

The age of the steel line-of-battleship really began in the 1880s, with the construction of a series of warships that could carry and independently aim heavy guns external to the hull.  In 1905, HMS Dreadnought brought together an array of innovations in shipbuilding, propulsion, and gunnery to create a new kind of warship, one that could dominate all existing battleships.

Although eventually supplanted by the submarine and the aircraft carrier, the battleship took pride of place in the navies of the first half of the twentieth century. The mythology of of the battleship age often understates how active many of the ships were; both World War I and World War II saw numerous battleship engagements. These are the five most important battles of the dreadnought age.

Battle of Jutland:

In the years prior to World War I, Britain and Germany raced to outbuild each other, resulting in vast fleets of dreadnought battleships.  The British won the race, but not by so far that they could ignore the power of the German High Seas Fleet.  When war began, the Royal Navy collected most of its modern battleships into the Grand Fleet, based at Scapa Flow.

The High Seas Fleet and the Grand Fleet spared for nearly three years before the main event. In May 1916, Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Admiral John Jellicoe laid dueling traps; Scheer hoped to draw a portion of the Grand Fleet under the guns of the High Seas Fleet, while Jellicoe sought to bring the latter into the jaws of the former.  Both succeeded, to a point; British battlecruisers and fast battleships engaged the German line of battle, before the arrival of the whole of the Grand Fleet put German survival in jeopardy.

The two sides fought for most of an afternoon.  The Germans has sixteen dreadnought battleships, six pre-dreadnoughts, and five battlecruisers.  Against this, the British fielded twenty-eight dreadnoughts and nine battlecruisers. Jellicoe managed to trap the Germans on the wrong side of the Grand Fleet, but in a confused night action most of the German ships passed through the British line, and to safety.

Many, on both sides, considered Jutland a disappointment.  Both Scheer and Jellicoe believed that they missed a chance to destroy the enemy fleet, the latter with considerably more justifiable cause. Nevertheless, together the two sides lost four battlecruisers and a pre-dreadnought battleship.  Had either side enjoyed a bit less luck, the losses could have been much worse.

Battle of Mers-el-Kebir:

The surrender of France in 1940 left the disposition of the French Navy in question. Many of the heavy ships, mostly located in French colonies, could aid either Axis or British forces.  In early July 1940, Winston Churchill decided to take a risk averse approach.  The Royal Navy would force a French decision, with the result of either seizing or destroying the French navy.

(Recommended: 5 Most Powerful Battleships Ever)

The largest concentration of French ships, including four French battleships, lay at Mers-el-Kebir, in Algeria. Two of the French battleships were veterans of World War I; old, slow, and not particularly useful to either the Italian or the British navies. The prizes were six heavy destroyers, and the fast battleships Strasbourg and Dunkerque.  These ships could contribute on either side of the conflict.

The British dispatched Force H from Gibraltar, consisting of HMS Hood, HMS Valiant, HMS Resolution, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, and a flotilla of supporting ships to either intimidate or destroy the French.  Royal Navy representatives submitted an ultimatum to their French counterparts, demanding that the ships either join the British, sail to America and disarm, or scuttle themselves. What precisely happened in the communications between Force H and the French commander remains in dispute.  What we do know is that the British battleships opened fire, with devastating results. Bretagne’s magazine exploded, killing over a thousand French sailors.  Provence and Dunkerque both took hits, and promptly beached themselves.  Strasbourg made a daring dash for the exit, then outran Hood to escape the British task force.

In the end, the British sank one obsolete ship and damaged another.  They damaged one fast battleship, and let another escape.  1300 French sailors died during the battle. Fortunately, the surviving French sailors had little interest in serving the Germans; they would eventually scuttle most of their ships at Toulon, following a German invasion of Vichy.

Battle of Calabria:

Most of the battles in the Mediterranean theater in World War II came about as the result of convoy protection.  The Italians needed to escort their convoys to Libya, while the British needed to escort convoys to Malta, and points east.

In July 1940, shortly after the destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, the far escorts of two convoys met each other in battle.  An Italian task force consisting of the battleships Giulio Cesare, Conti di Cavour, and various smaller ships rubbed up against a British convoy including HMS Warspite, HMS Malaya, HMS Royal Sovereign, the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, and associated escorts.

The Italians had the initial advantage, as the dispersal of Royal Navy ships meant that only Warspite could fire upon the Italian line.  Warspite engaged both enemy ships, coming under fire from Giulio Cesare as Malaya and Royal Sovereign hurried to her aid.  After several near misses on both sides, Warspite struck with one of the longest hits in the history of naval artillery.  The hit, which detonated ammunition on Giulio Cesare’s deck, resulted in a loss of speed that forced the Italian ship out of line.  This cost the Italians their moment of advantage; with odds at 3-1, the remaining Italian ships retired.

Although the Italians failed to score a victory in the battle, they did demonstrate that the Royal Navy could not operate in the central Mediterranean without heavy escort.  The addition of two new, modern fast battleships in the next months would give the Italians a major advantage, which the airstrike on Taranto would ameliorate only for a time. The Allies could not claim naval supremacy in the ‘Med’ until 1943, when the Italian fleet surrendered under the guns of Malta.

When the German battleship Bismarck entered service in 1941, she became the largest warship in the world, displacing the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Hood.  In May 1941, the Bismarck sortied from Norway in the company of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.  The Germans planned to use the pair as commerce raiders, with Bismarck drawing off or destroying the capital ship escorts of any convoys, while Prinz Eugen concentrated on the merchant ships themselves.

The first task force to intercept Bismarck included HMS Hood, HMS Prince of Wales, and four destroyers.  HMS Prince of Wales was theoretically comparable to Bismarck, but teething problems (she had only very recently completed trials) limited her combat effectiveness.  HMS Hood carried a similar armament to Bismarck (8 15” guns), but also carried twenty more years of age.

Appreciating the threat that long-range fire posed to the thin deck-armor of Hood, Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland sought to close the range as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, Bismarck’s fifth salvo caught Hood amidships, resulting in a huge explosion.  Analysts debate to this day what precisely happened aboard Hood, but the blast took her to the bottom so quickly that only three crewmembers (from a crew of 1419) escaped.

Late in the battle, Prince of Wales scored a hit on Bismarck that caused a fuel leak.  This killed Bismarck’s mission; she could not raid into the Atlantic with fuel running low.  Bismarck broke contact with Prince of Wales (which by this time was severely hampered by gunnery breakdowns), and attempted to run for home.  Two days later she was caught by HMS Rodney and HMS King George V, which avenged Hood by sending Bismarck to the bottom.

Second Battle of Guadalcanal:

In late 1942, Americans owned the day over the Solomon Islands, largely by virtue of their control of Henderson Airfield.  The Japanese, on the other hand, owned the night.  The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) used its advantages at night to run supplies and reinforcements to Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and to bombard American positions.

On November 13, a task force including two Japanese battleships tried to “run the slot” and bombard Henderson. The IJN task force was met by a group of American cruisers and destroyers, which took advantage of surprise and good luck to cripple the battleship Hiei.  American aircraft finished off Hiei the next day.

The following evening, the Japanese tried again. The Americans, virtually tapped out after months of grueling combat, went to their aces in the hole; USS Washington and USS South Dakota, a pair of fast battleships normally tasked with escorting carriers.  Four destroyers screened the two battleships.  The IJN force included the battleship Kirishima (sister of Hiei, and survivor of the first battle), four cruisers, and nine destroyers.

The early stages of the night action saw the IJN warships sweep aside the U.S. Navy destroyer screen.  South Dakota and Washington became separated, and the former came under heavy fire from the entire Japanese task force, which caused high casualties and a complete loss of communications.  When the Japanese opened up on South Dakota, however, they revealed their position to USS Washington, which took the opportunity to hammer HIJMS Kirishima with her 16” and 5” guns.  Kirishima suffered mortal damage, fell out of the battle line, and eventually sank (although most of her crew was rescued).  South Dakota and Washington escaped, the latter with virtually no damage.

Parting Salvos:

Only eight dreadnoughts remain, all in the United States. Over time, it is almost certain that this number will dwindle; several of the memorialized battleships are in poor condition, and likely will eventually find their way to the scrappers, or to service as an artificial reef. Nevertheless, for more than a generation analysts and the general public perceived these ships to constitute the currency of naval, and to some extent national, power.

Robert Farley , a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

Security, Americas

The stealth bomber is no fighter, yet an anti-air defense capability would serve it well.

Key point: Stealth is not perfect. If the B-21 was discovered, it might need a way to protect itself from another warplane.

Recent reports about the B-21 Raider suggest that the plane might have a mission that U.S. bombers have not had for a very long time: air-to-air combat. If the Air Force continues to pursue this line of thought, it will revive a concept that dominated airpower theory in the early age of aviation, but that fell by the wayside because of technological and operational concerns in the 1950s and 1960s. However, it remains to be seen whether the idea of a B-21 “battleplane” is practical, or simply the bureaucratic answer to critical concerns about the bomber’s survivability. 

History

Arming a bomber always came with trade-offs. For one, armament invariably increased the weight of the plane, necessarily reducing some combination of range, speed, and payload. Defensive weaponry also often had negative aerodynamic effects, leading losses in speed and maneuverability. Nevertheless, air forces began arming bombers from a very early period. The Gotha bombers that terrorized London during World War I experimented with a variety of different kinds of armament to defend themselves from British interceptors. A turning point in the search for the self-defending bomber came with the Martin B-10. The B-10 had three enclosed turrets for defensive machine guns, enabling it to defend itself on multiple vectors. Operating in concert, a formation of B-10s could theoretically protect itself from attacking fighters, and even incur serious attrition on a defensive force of pursuit aircraft.

Heyday

The heyday of the self-defending bomber came during the interwar period, when theorists in the United States and (to a lesser extent) the United Kingdom hoped that well-armed bombers, flying in formation, could defeat attacking pursuit aircraft. The defensive argument performed two strategic roles, both increasing the chance that bombers would arrive over their targets to deliver payloads, and attriting away the defensive fighters of the enemy. 

The USAF put the theory to test in the early daylight raids over Germany, and the results were far from good. The high speed and maneuverability of German fighters, combined with Germany’s “home field advantage” of anti-aircraft artillery, meant that formations could be broken up and individual bombers hunted down. Moreover, the machine guns carried by U.S. bombers were generally insufficient for warding off German fighters, which could punch at them with long-range 20mm cannon. The USAF eventually gave up on unescorted flights of bombers during daylight, instead turning first to night bombing, and then to long-range escort fighters such as the P-51 Mustang.

Bombers were nevertheless used in some other fighting roles, however. The Germans experimented with turning light bombers into night fighters, which could sacrifice maneuverability for speed, firepower, and sensors. Some Ju-88s and Do-217s were used in such a fashion. The Royal Air Force also used the de Haviland Mosquito light bomber as a night fighter in certain situations. 

Decline

The immediate post-war bombers kept the dream of a defensive armament alive. The B-36 Peacemaker carried a 20mm cannon in a tail turret, as did the B-47 and the B-52. The USAF also famously experimented with turning the B-36 into a makeshift mothership with its own defensive fighter. However, most bomber designs of the jet age basically gave up on the idea of defensive armament. The B-58 Hustler carried no defensive weapons, nor did the XB-70 Valkyrie. As interceptors shifted from hunting with guns to hunting with missiles, a cannon offered little protection. Jet age bombers would depend on speed for protection, at least until it became apparent that they could not outrun SAMs. The last bomber designed to defend itself against enemy fighters was the B-52 Stratofortress, which carried 20mm Vulcan cannon in its tail. Although the accounts are disputed, B-52 tail gunners were credited with the kills of two Vietnamese People’s Army Air Force MiG-21s during Operation Linebacker II. Vietnamese sources attribute the loss of a third MiG to a B-52 gun in April 1972. 

Conceptual Rebirth

At one point, someone floated a half-serious proposal that involved equipping the B-1B with a mechanism for firing air-to-air missiles at pursuing targets, although it was unclear how the radar systems to guide such missiles were supposed to work. In a somewhat similar vein, thought has been given to modifying the B-1B to fit the missile truck concept, one version of an “arsenal plane” that would carry a large number of missiles but rely on sensors from other aircraft. The high speed and large payload of the B-1B would make it ideal for such a mission, at least among existing aircraft in the USAF inventory. Of course, the Air Force and associated analysts have also argued that drones could fulfill this role without the need for risking a manned aircraft. 

The idea of a B-21 optimized for air-to-air combat makes some sense, given existing trends in the development of weapons and sensors. A large aircraft like the B-21 could carry numerous air-to-air missiles, even in stealth mode. Properly equipped, it could use powerful sensors to develop a good picture of the aerial battlefield, simultaneously acting as a fighting and command-control platform. Trends in bomber design have of late tended to eschew high speed in preference for stealth. Fighters, on the other hand, continue to prize speed in both offensive and defensive tactical situations. Firing missiles tends to reduce stealth, both because of the aspect change of the aircraft as it fires, and because of the evident existence of the air-to-air missiles. Fighters solve this problem by running away as fast as possible after shooting. The B-21 would likely require a different strategy, or very long-range missiles that would place it beyond the effective range of the enemy. 

Wrap

The idea of a bomber as fighter stems from several related problems. The USAF remains reluctant to completely entrust its deep penetration mission to the concept of stealth, both because of the evident practical difficulties (large bombers aren’t invisible during the day, no matter how stealthy they are) and because of concerns about improvements in sensor technology. Thus, the idea of a plane that could defend itself has some appeal. Moreover, as the cost of fighter aircraft has escalated dramatically, the idea of using a bomber to inflict serious damage on the defensive forces of an enemy has become more enticing. Finally, the general “capabilities creep” of proposed aircraft is almost necessary to building a strong, broad-based, and robust coalition for procurement. This can mean over-promising with respect to capabilities and missions. Whether the B-21 will ever actually try to shoot down an enemy fighter remains an open question; if so, it will become the first bomber since 1972 to successful turn the predator into the prey. 

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to The National Interest, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Michael Peck

Security, Americas

Thanks, arms race. 

In another sign that the nuclear arms race is heating up, the U.S. is ramping up production of nuclear bomb cores.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has announced that it plans to increase the production of plutonium pits to 80 per year. The grapefruit-sized pits contain the fissile material that give nuclear weapons such tremendous power.

Production will center on the Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River site in North Carolina, which would be modified to manufacture at least 50 pits per year, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which would generate at least 30, by 2030.

America’s nuclear weapons cores are aging, with some pits dating back to the 1970s, leading to concerns about the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

“The U.S. lost its ability to produce pits in large numbers in 1989, when the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver, Colorado, was shut down after the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Environmental Protection Agency investigated environmental violations at the site,” noted Physics Today magazine in 2018. Up to 1,200 pits per year had been manufactured there.

“Since then, only 30 pits for weapons have been fabricated—all at LANL [Los Alamos National Laboratory], the sole U.S. facility with production capability. Weapons-quality pit production ceased in 2012, when LANL began modernizing its 40-year-old facilities, although several practice pits have since been fabricated. The oldest pits in the stockpile—which now numbers 3,882, according to DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—date to 1978.”

In its 2018 Nuclear Policy Review, the Trump administration called for 80 new plutonium pits per year. Congress has also allocated large sums, with $4.7 billion alone allocated in FY 2019 for maintenance and life extension of the nuclear stockpile. The NNSA says it is legally mandated to ensure a capacity of at least 80 pits per year.

Though the production of nuclear cores has been an issue for years, a looming U.S.-Russia arms race makes the situation even more sensitive. Russia is fielding a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons, including a hypersonic nuclear-armed glider and an air-launched ballistic missile. The Trump administration has withdrawn from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia, alleging Russian violations, leading to fears that a new competition will beget the return of nuclear-armed, medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles.

Anti-nuclear groups are furious. “Expanded pit production will cost at least $43 billion over the next 30 years,” argues the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups. Yet the Defense Department and NNSA have never explained why expanded plutonium pit production is necessary. More than 15,000 plutonium pits are stored at NNSA’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. Independent experts have concluded that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 100 years (the average pit age is less than 40 years). Crucially, there is no pit production scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, proposed future pit production is for speculative new-design nuclear weapons, but those designs have been canceled.”

Introducing a new generation of nuclear weapons “could adversely impact national security because newly produced plutonium pits cannot be full-scale tested without violating the global nuclear weapons testing moratorium.”

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

This article was first published in 2020.

Robert Farley

Security, Asia

Beijing has worked hard to build a modern navy.

Key point: The Type 055 is pretty decent and one of the best the PLA Navy has. However, America is already moving ahead with its own new warships.

Does the United States have an answer to China’s new Type 055 destroyers? Does it need one?

On July 3 Dalian shipyard launched two of the big new ships, with some reports suggesting that the class may extend to twenty-four vessels. The ships are large and have more VLS cells than Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers, although the latter still exceed the former in sensor integration and other capabilities.

Still, with the Navy’s cruiser force aging, does the U.S. Navy need to think seriously about its own large cruiser?

This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Description:

The Type 055 destroyers are large ships, probably displacing around thirteen thousand tons and carrying 112 vertical launch system (VLS) cells, in addition to a 130-millimeter gun and a wide array of sensors and defensive weapons. They are the world’s largest surface combatants apart from the Zumwalt class destroyers, which really are specialized land attack vessels. The overall production run remains uncertain, with a low estimate of six and a high estimate of twenty-four; much likely depends on how effectively the ship performs in PLAN service.

U.S. Response:

The United States has been slow to develop a replacement to the Ticonderoga class cruisers, which are somewhat smaller than the Type 055. The DDG-1000 class will end after three ships, and in any case the Zumwalts do not perform missions similar to the Type 055. The Obama administration cancelled the CG(X) program after cost projections became excessive. In response to the failure of the DDG(X) and CG(X) programs, the Navy decided to restart the Arleigh Burke program, which had the added benefit of improving ballistic missile defense capabilities. But apart from the Arleigh Burke Flight III ships, the U.S. Navy has no specific large combatants in its long-term plans. At the moment, the FFG(X) program is dominating the U.S. Navy’s procurement attention, as the shortcomings of the Littoral Combat Ship have demonstrated a need to fill the gap between the LCS and the Arleigh Burkes.

But the Ticonderogas will soon reach the end of their useful service lives, as will the oldest of the DDG-51 class of ships. Some have floated the idea of a cruiser based on the hull of the LPD-17, which would allow high energy production, a degree of modularity, and the inclusion of a wide variety of different systems. However, the LPD-17s are large and slow, likely incapable of keeping up with carrier battle groups. Another idea (floated by Tyler Rogoway, among others) is to modify the existing Zumwalt design for cruiser-esque purposes. But as of yet the Navy has made no firm determination about the future of its large surface combatant program.

The Need?

But then there is little obvious need for a direct analogue to specific Chinese ship classes. The existing cruisers and destroyers of the U.S. Navy perform roles essentially similar to that of the Type 055s, even if the latter carry more VLS cells. And the era in which individual ships fight each other independently is long in the past; indeed, even during the dreadnought era individual ship-to-ship comparison rarely played out in actual combat.

In a fight between the United States and China, the U.S. Navy would use a wide variety of air, surface, and subsurface systems to track and destroy the largest units of the PLAN. While the additional VLS systems and sensors of the Type 055 will undoubtedly increase Chinese capabilities, they won’t be directed towards any specific U.S. ship type (other perhaps than aircraft carriers). Similarly, the U.S. Navy will find it far more convenient to sink the Type 055s with submarines and air-launched cruise missiles than it will with any specific ship type. And so the question is less “can the United States match the Type 055” than “what hull or set of hulls will make it easiest to match the capabilities that the Type 055 can offer?” There are a variety of technological developments (VLS, power generation, sensor capability, and future avenues in railguns and lasers) that suggest that size may once again be rewarded in naval architecture; the Type 055s offer China’s initial answer for how to take advantage of these developments, just as the Zumwalts represented an exploration of those capabilities on the U.S. side. Unfortunately, the former seem more likely to see long-term success than the latter.

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Wrap

So the short answer to the question “does the United States need to respond to the Type 055” is “no, not in the medium term.” The longer answer is that the U.S. Navy needs to figure out its procurement and shipbuilding policies soon in order to credibly approach design of the next big surface combatant. As the Ticonderogas continue to age, they will leave a gap that a new large warship needs to fill, even if it is never likely to meet the Type 055 in direct combat. China has decided to take advantage of the efficiencies inherent in a large hull-type, not because of any specific competition with the United States, but rather because of the evolution of key technologies. The U.S. Navy can also take advantage of these evolutionary developments, even if it doesn’t specifically think of matching the Type 055, but it needs to sort out its long-term shipbuilding plans.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book . He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

Security, Eurasia

Christmas came early for the Russian Ground Forces.

Here's What You Need to Know: No mention was made of what the individual soldiers may have received this year, but the Russian military has been adopting the Ratnik, “soldier of the future” combat outfit.

Christmas came early for the Russian Ground Forces, which received more than 2,500 new pieces of armaments this year—including advanced Buk-M3 medium-range air defense systems and Tornado-S multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS). 

“In order to increase combat performance and renew the equipment in 2020, military units of Russia’s Ground Forces received over 2,500 pieces of new standard weaponry, as well as military and special hardware,” Ground Forces Commander-in-Chief Army Gen. Oleg Salyukov said in an interview with the Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zverda newspaper, according to a report from Tass.

The new equipment included the Buk-M3 and Tornado-S, but also the Verba fourth-generation infrared homing surface-to-air missile MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems).

The Tornado-S multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) is reported to be the most powerful MLRS weapon in the world with the longest-range. It features improved range and accuracy over its predecessor platforms.

The advanced Tornado multiple rocket launchers are precision systems that are outfitted with smart rocket shells. These have the capability to strike an enemy’s vital facilities at considerable distances. It is a heavily upgraded version of the BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launcher, and it features increased range and fire accuracy capabilities. It also offers the option of introducing an individual flight assignment to each of the shells, while the system was designated to strike enemy soldiers, military hardware, stationery and mobile sole/individual as well as multiple targets.

The Tornado-S is now replacing the outdated BM-27 Uragan self-propelled multiple rocket launcher system, which entered service with the Soviet Red Army in the late 1970s, along with the BM-30 Smerch heavy multiple rocket launcher of the late 1980s. Both platforms are set to be retired from service by late 2027.

“Artillery units receive Tornado-G MLRS and Msta-SM self-propelled howitzers with a new automatic fire control system,” the ground forces commander added. “Anti-tank units got the Khrizantema-SP anti-tank missile system with a unique capacity of penetrating the armor of all modern tanks in any weather conditions.”

Those who were clearly on the Ground Forces’ “nice list” were the reconnaissance teams who received Strelets combined-arms reconnaissance systems and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as Taifun-K (Typhoon K) family of 4x4 light armored vehicles.

The Russian military’s armored units also received new platforms in 2020.

“Tank crews and motorized infantry units receive modern T-72B3M and T-80BVM tanks, BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, modernized BMP-2 vehicles with the Berezhok combat module and the BTR-82A wheeled armoured personnel carrier,” said Gen. Salyukov.

Notably absent from the list was the T-14 Armata tank, which had been scheduled for deployment to units this year but now will likely be arriving next year.

No mention was made of what the individual soldiers may have received this year, but the Russian military has been adopting the Ratnik, “soldier of the future” combat outfit. It utilizes lightweight body armor designed to protect up to 90 percent of a soldier's body, as well as a highly-integrated, wireless networked communication system that provides greater situational awareness and sharing of vital information and intelligence between each soldier and unit.

Now the hope is that Russia remains on the nice list, and doesn't suddenly get naughty with all of its new military hardware. 

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress.

This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters